<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/wayne-lapierre" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wayne LaPierre</a>, the longtime CEO of the National Rifle Association, announced his resignation Friday, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/wayne-lapierre-announces-resignation-nra-chief" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Fox News.
LaPierre worked for the organization for nearly five decades, joining in 1977, and has served as its executive vice president and CEO since 1991, Fox noted. His resignation will be effective January 31, and NRA President Charles Cotton said that Andrew Arulanandam, head of general operations, will step in as interim CEO.
&#8220;With pride in all that we have accomplished, I am announcing my resignation from the NRA,&#8221; LaPierre said in a press release obtained by Fox News. &#8220;I’ve been a card-carrying member of this organization for most of my adult life, and I will never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend Second Amendment freedom. My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever.&#8221;
“On behalf of the NRA Board of Directors, I thank Wayne LaPierre for his service,&#8221; Cotton said in the press release. &#8220;Wayne has done as much to protect Second Amendment freedom as anyone. Wayne is a towering figure in the fight for constitutional freedom, but one of his other talents is equally important: he built an organization that is bigger than him.&#8221;
LaPierre, 74, attributed his resignation to concerns about his health.
LaPierre&#8217;s resignation comes as a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James against the NRA is set to go to trial next week, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/05/us/wayne-lapierre-nra-resigns/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to CNN. The suit alleges that the NRA violated laws concerning non-profits and accuses its leaders of using the non-profit&#8217;s money for personal use. The suit seeks to dissolve the organization.
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“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” James said after she announced the suit in August 2020.
After James filed the suit, then-NRA President Carolyn Meadows <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/ny-ag-announcement/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told CNN</a> it was a &#8220;baseless premeditated attack on our organization and the Second Amendment freedoms it fights to defend. It’s a transparent attempt to score political points and attack the leading voice in opposition to the leftist agenda.&#8221;
James has been highly critical of the NRA since before she was attorney general, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/19/nra-lawsuit-ny-ag-letitia-james-past-comments/5606437002/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">calling</a> it a &#8220;criminal enterprise&#8221; and a &#8220;terrorist organization&#8221; during her 2018 campaign for the position.
&#8220;The NRA continues its defense of a lawsuit by the New York Attorney General, and LaPierre is an individual defendant in that action. It is well-known that the NYAG vowed to pursue the NRA when she was candidate for her office and, upon being elected, filed a lawsuit to dissolve the Association in August 2020. Trial proceedings in that case begin Monday,&#8221; the NRA said in its <a href="https://home.nra.org/statements/nra-evp-wayne-lapierre-announces-resignation-from-nra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a> announcing LaPierre&#8217;s resignation.

Leading Conservatives Gather For Annual CPAC Event In National Harbor, Maryland

Wayne LaPierre Resigns As NRA CEO

Gun Rights

National Rifle Association (NRA)

Politics

Second Amendment

Social Issues

Wayne LaPierre

The National Rifle Association is currently struggling with inner turmoil after former president and current Executive Vice President Wayne Lapierre sent a letter accusing Col. Oliver North (who was, until this morning, NRA president) of blackmailing him into resigning.
The battle is taking place at the worst possible moment for the organization &#8212; right in the middle of its annual meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana. On Saturday morning, North was supposed to appear on a panel alongside Lapierre, but as The Washington Free Beacon&#8217;s Stephen Gutowski reported on Twitter, the former U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel didn&#8217;t show up, instead providing a letter offering his resignation.
&#8220;Breaking: Oliver North is NOT at the NRA members meeting,&#8221; Gutowski tweeted. &#8220;Wayne Lapierre is here, by the way, and came out to a standing ovation.&#8221;
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Wayne Lapierre is here, by the way, and came out to a standing ovation.
&#8212; Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) <a href="https://twitter.com/StephenGutowski/status/1122139391697223685?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
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An empty spot remained on stage where North should have been.
Richard Childress, former NASCAR driver and CEO of Richard Childress Racing, read a letter from North saying he had been forced out of the organization over his allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual harassment (not from or against him), and excessive expenses.
North had spoken at the NRA&#8217;s annual meeting Friday morning, but was seen leaving the event for the airport, Gutowski reported.
Lapierre, in <a href="https://t.co/1lz3MEJQXT?amp=1">a letter</a> obtained by The Wall Street Journal, accused North of threatening to go public with his allegations if the executive vice president did not resign immediately.
&#8220;I believe the purpose of the letter was to humiliate me, discredit our Association, and raise appearances of impropriety that hurt our members and the Second Amendment,&#8221; Lapierre wrote. &#8220;The letter would contain a devastating account of our financial status, sexual harassment charges against a staff member, accusations of wardrobe expenses and excessive staff travel expenses.&#8221;
Importantly, Lapierre claimed: &#8220;Col. North explained that the letter would not be sent &#8211; if I were to promptly resign as your Executive Vice President. And, if I supported Col. North&#8217;s continued tenure as President, he stated that he could &#8216;negotiate&#8217; an &#8216;excellent retirement&#8217; for me.&#8221;
The accusations were prompted by an NRA lawsuit against one of the organization&#8217;s vendors, Ackerman McQueen (AM). Lapierre alleged in his letter that AM joined North in blackmailing the executive vice president.
After a phone call with North, Lapierre wrote, &#8220;others informed me that I needed to withdraw the NRA lawsuit against AM or be smeared.&#8221;
Lapierre went on to write that the allegations against the organization that would be contained in a damaging letter were never made during his 40-year relationship with AM. &#8220;They are conveniently making them now &#8211; only as they face scrutiny in a Virginia court and the prospect of having to comply with our demand for books and records,&#8221; Lapierre wrote.
The New York Times then <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/business/nra-wayne-lapierre-oliver-north.html">reported</a> that North had &#8220;created a committee to review allegations of financial improprieties that threaten the NRA&#8217;s status as a nonprofit organization.&#8221;
In its lawsuit against AM, the Times reported, the NRA alleged the firm was overbilling the gun-rights organization and that North had a conflict of interest in the matter because he was also paid by AM. The lawsuit claimed AM refused to provide financial records as part of the NRA&#8217;s &#8220;review of contractors it was conducting amid the threats of aggressive regulatory action,&#8221; the Times reported.

Oliver North Absent From NRA Members Meeting Following Accusations Of Blackmail

Wayne LaPierre, leader of the National Rifle Association, took the stage Thursday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference to deliver his first public comments since last week&#8217;s deadly shooting at a high school in Florida.
And if you thought he&#8217;d be a shrinking violet, you don&#8217;t know Wayne LaPierre.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a bizarre fact that in this country our jewelry stores, all over this country, are more important than our children,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Our banks, our airports, our NBA games, our NFL games, our office buildings, our movie stars, our politicians, they&#8217;re all more protected than our children at school.
&#8220;Does that make any sense to anybody? Do we really love our money and our celebrities more than we love our children?&#8221; he said to loud applause from gathered conservatives in a ballroom just outside Washington, D.C., at Maryland&#8217;s National Harbor.
The NRA has been hit hard in the aftermath of the shooting which left 17 dead. But LaPierre said the media was working overtime to paint the nation&#8217;s largest gun organization in a bad light. &#8220;Opportunists wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain,&#8221; he said.
Democrats, LaPierre declared, &#8220;hate the NRA. They hate the Second Amendment. They hate individual freedom.
&#8220;For them it&#8217;s not a safety issue, it&#8217;s a political issue,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment and our firearms freedoms, so they can eradicate all individual freedoms.
&#8220;Their solution is to make you, all of you, less free,&#8221; LaPierre said. &#8220;They want to sweep right under the carpet the failure of school security, the failure of family, the failure of America&#8217;s mental health system and even the unbelievable failure of the FBI,&#8221; he said of those calling for new gun restrictions.
LaPierre said all Americans &#8220;share a goal of safe schools, safe neighborhoods and a safe country.&#8221; Calling schools &#8220;gun-free zones&#8221; that are easy targets for crazed shooters, LaPierre echoed what President Trump had suggested at a White House meeting on Wednesday &#8212; that schools be better armed and protected.
&#8220;Evil walks among us, and God help us if we don&#8217;t harden our schools and protect our kids,&#8221; LaPierre said.
Trump, meanwhile, has suggested tightening the national background-check system, raising the age for purchasing a semi-automatic weapon to 21, and allowing some teachers and school officials &#8212; fully trained &#8212; to carry firearms on campuses.
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I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue &#8211; I hope!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/966662241977360384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 22, 2018</a></blockquote>
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NRA’s Wayne LaPierre Rips Media, Democrats For Putting Politics Ahead Of School Safety

Donald Trump

The NRA Takes On The Washington Post

Dana Loesch

Gun Control

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Media

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New York Times

Washington Post

The executive vice president of the National Rifle Association has thrown down the gauntlet and is challenging President Barack Obama to a debate.
Wayne LaPierre makes the challenge in a video, which he begins by accusing Obama of acting against Congress, the will of the people, and the Constitution with his dictatorial executive orders.
&#8220;The president unilaterally decreed that anyone, any lawful citizen who sells, trades, or gives even one firearm might be vulnerable to arrest and charged with a felony,&#8221; LaPierre said.
LaPierre excoriated the president for depriving some Social Security recipients of their Second Amendment rights.
&#8220;With an opportunity for the president to score political points and claim a cheap victory, this executive action is a bright red line that law-abiding gun owners should cross at their own peril,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s only a matter of time before he makes an example out of someone, and to do so the president announced a federal gun force that will be four times the size of the special forces units he deployed against ISIS terrorists.&#8221;
The NRA&#8217;s vice president pledged to fight back against Obama&#8217;s executive orders. He also blasted Obama&#8217;s unwillingness to prosecute criminals, which he said is allowing them to terrorize law-abiding citizens.
&#8220;President Obama has made America a sanctuary nation for felons, criminal gangbangers, drug dealers, repeat offenders and illegal aliens,&#8221; LaPierre said. &#8220;Under the existing federal gun laws, he could take every felon with a gun, drug dealer with a gun and criminal gangbanger with a gun off the streets tomorrow and lock them up for five years or more. But under his direction, federal gun prosecutions have dropped dramatically.&#8221;
LaPierre pointed out that Obama could instruct his Justice Department to crack down on the gun criminals terrorizing the streets of Chicago, and he has yet to do it with one year left of his presidency. He also warned that Obama&#8217;s attempts to destroy the NRA is paving the way for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to abolish the Second Amendment altogether.
After playing a clip of Obama accusing the NRA of refusing to have an open dialogue, LaPierre responded, &#8220;Mr. President, pre-screened questions that lead to your long-winded answers are anything but an honest dialogue.&#8221;
LaPierre handed Obama a challenge: a one-on-one debate on a TV network for an hour with a moderator that both sides agree upon without any pre-approved questions.
&#8220;Americans will judge for themselves who they trust and believe on this issue: you, or the NRA,&#8221; LaPierre said. &#8220;Let&#8217;s see if you&#8217;re game for a fair debate. It&#8217;s your chance to show the American people you&#8217;re not afraid to meet the NRA on neutral ground.&#8221;
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Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen – Season 16

WATCH: NRA Executive VP Challenges Obama to Debate

Barack Obama

On the same day that Obama announced his plans for executive action on gun-control, Wayne LaPierre released a new National Rifle Association video cutting though the bull about the call for more background checks when politicians won&#8217;t fix the system we have already.
According to LaPierre, the current system is useless because politicians aren&#8217;t enforcing regulations to keep states updating the databases with the information needed to keep criminals and crazies from gun ownership.
&#8220;The NRA has fought for 20 years to put the records of those adjudicated mentally incompetent into the National Instant Check System,&#8221; says the NRA president. &#8220;And until the politicians demand that they are submitted, killers who are legally prohibited from owning firearms will walk into gun stores and pass every background check they take.&#8221;
&#8220;The only thing the average American has heard about background checks is the absolute fallacy that what we need is more,&#8221; LaPierre says, adding, &#8220;The system is only as good as the records within it.&#8221;
<blockquote>&#8220;If you cast a net and the fish swim through the holes, you don&#8217;t need a bigger net, you need tighter holes.&#8221;
Wayne LaPierre</blockquote>
Wayne slams the point home by pointing out that &#8220;38 States submit less than 80% of their felony convictions, leaving more than 7 million felony convictions in the dark.&#8221;
&#8220;If you cast a net and the fish swim through the holes, you don&#8217;t need a bigger net, you need tighter holes,&#8221; he says.
In 2010, 80,000 prohibited people committed felonies by trying to buy guns and just 44 were prosecuted. LaPierre asks, &#8220;Does that sound like a good number to anybody?&#8221;
The Oregon Killer, the WDBJ killer, the Charleston church killer, the Santa Barbara killer, the Maryland mall killer, the LA airport killer, the DC Navy yard killer, the Aurora movie theater killer, the Tucson killer, the Virginia Tech killer, and both Fort Hood killers all had one thing in common: every single one passed a background check.
Wayne then sums it all up. &#8220;So when you hear politicians who won’t fix the broken system talk about expanding it, don’t buy it,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Demand what works. Put armed security in every school. Fix the broken mental health system. Enforce the federal gun laws against every criminal thug on the street. Prosecute dangerous people when they show up to buy a gun. And for God’s sake, put every prohibited person into the system. That’s what common-sense gun laws look like.&#8221;
The only problem is the Left doesn&#8217;t believe in common sense. The real agenda is the complete disarming of the law-abiding public.
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Real-Simple-Good-Guys-Bad-Guys-Gun-Meme

Watch NRA President Blast Obama and The Left Over ‘Absolute Fallacy’ of More Background Checks

The head of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, is sending the Obama Administration a strong message in his new ad, reminding people that the NRA is &#8220;Freedom&#8217;s Safest Place.&#8221; 
LaPierre, who appears in the ad himself, posted the video two days before the San Bernardino attack; what he says has even more significance today: 
<blockquote>
&#8220;You and I didn&#8217;t choose to be targets in the Age of Terror. But innocents like us will continue to be slaughtered in concert halls, sports stadiums, restaurants, and airplanes. No amount of bloodshed will ever satisfy the demons among us. These cowards dream of inflicting more damage, more suffering, more suffering. No target is too intimate or too sacred for these monsters. They will come to where we worship, where we educate, and where we live. But when evil comes knocking at our door, Americans have a power no other people on the planet share: the full-throated right to defend our families and ourselves with our 2nd Amendment. Let fate decide if mercy is offered to the demons at our door.
I&#8217;m the National Rifle Association of America and I&#8217;m Freedom&#8217;s Safest Place.&#8221; 
</blockquote>
The NRA&#8217;s ad campaign also took a swing at Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, calling her a dishonest, self-serving, career politician:
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Exit thought from the candidate herself&#8230;
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NRA President To Obama: Terrorists Will Keep Slaughtering Us, So We’d Better Be Armed

Hillary Clinton

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